My 96-year-old mom lives with me and asked me to buy her some Nair to use on her underarms. Seriously!?

My mother asks me to copy recipes From TV, YouTube, etc. Even if she can barely read anymore... And does everything by heart. If the recipe says "Two spoons " she says its wrong, its three spoons. She has a chef mind and is Always right.
I don't complain, I think she needs her routine. She needs to keep busy

When my mom was first transitioned into the nursing home she wanted a pair of binoculars, makeup, a robe etc. I'm pretty sure she used the binoculars once, the robe never, the lipstick once when i applied it for her. Everyone in the family kind of smirked when I'd run out and get these things for her but I would have lassoed the moon if she'd asked me to.

I had to laugh though. When she first moved into her room there I bought her a new t.v. My one sister only waited one day after mom died before grovelling for that.

If it helps any? We just go with it. Mom gets obsessed with buying a hairbrush (mind you she has SO many of them) or tweezers? No idea what that was about.  Some kind of toothpaste, underwear, lipstick (she has so so many tubes of those). The list goes on and on. We've kinda stopped trying to connect the dots. Just no point anymore. Just try to keep her happy in the moment. Because the next moment? It's on to something else, that's just as bizarre. And most of the time? She doesn't remember the last moment anyway.

I don't grow hair there anymore and I'm only 57. But it's always been part of my shower ritual once a week to shave there so sometimes I still get the old razor
out and go at it.

Maybe your mom has just forgotten she doesn't need to and is just going with an old habit.

My mother is a little younger and is wanting Plexaderm - she perks up when she sees the commercials with the disappearing eye bags. I remember Nair used to really stink!

Can't respond to the individual posts.

Artist, love it and how you said it.

Tothill, liked that idea.

Too late since you bought the Nair, but I think I would have made a label or had someone make a label for me and put it on a deodorant. She could rub it onto her underarms to her hearts content and not have any major issues.

Some of these things our parents say and do when in decline would be very funny and maybe will be when remembered in the future. It's the anger that hurts us because we love them and trying so hard to do the best for them.

I found my mom in the kitchen of the assisted living house the other night when all lights in the kitchen were off. I asked why she was there in the corner and she said it was a good place to see everything going on. I asked what was going on and she said "Nothing. Just as I like it". And I knew better than to try to get her back to her room or into the TV room with the other residents. So we sat in the dark and talked and watched nothing going on.